Trouble Island Read online

  PROLOGUE

  JOE

  I’M NOT SURE THE LEMON sauce thickened up as much as it was supposed to,” Aunt Trudy murmured, pursing her lips as she stared at the slice of shrimp-asparagus pizza she’d just placed in front of me. “Colton’s recipe said you’re supposed to dollop it on top. But it was more like… a drizzle.”

  Colton, in this case, was Colton Sparks—Aunt Trudy’s favorite celebrity chef. He hosts six—count ’em, six—different shows on the YUM! Network, and also has five different restaurants across the country. That includes his newest, Spice of Life, which is off Central Park in New York City. We’d brought Aunt Trudy there for her most recent birthday. It had been my idea. She loved it. She even cried a little. It was way more successful than last year, when I’d given her a Snuggie. Live and learn.

  “I’m sure it’s great,” my dad said, settling down on the couch with his own helping of pizza. “Everything you make is great, Trudy! You’re always so critical of your cooking, when I’ve never had anything so delicious.”

  Trudy blushed. “I just want to get it right.”

  “OMG,” my brother Frank announced through a mouthful of shrimp, asparagus, and cheese. “Aunt Trudy, this is your best yet! Well—I guess your crab lasagna was a little better.”

  “Thank you, Frank.” She glanced from my brother to the TV set, which was on mute. “Oh! It’s starting! Someone hit the button.”

  My mom grabbed the remote and turned on the sound.

  “—come to Who Gets Cut?” Colton Sparks was saying to the audience. He was a big, thirtysomething guy with hair so perfectly golden blond that it had to come out of a bottle. He looked like he spent a lot of time in the gym, and he liked to show off his biceps in brightly colored polo shirts embroidered with little versions of the food he was talking about that day on his show. Today his shirt was lime green with a tiny pink shrimp. “This is the game show that asks, who should be sous-chef at Rare, my new steak house in Las Vegas?”

  “I can’t even imagine,” Aunt Trudy said, picking up her own slice of pizza. “I know I can cook, but think what I could learn with some one-on-one time with a master like Colton Sparks! Incredible.”

  “You might just get that chance, Aunt Trudy,” I pointed out.

  She quickly shushed me. Colton was speaking again.

  “As you know, tonight we have a special announcement. My Home Cooking Masters Seafood Extravaganza invited viewers to send in their best seafood recipes to be judged by me and my team. The person with the best recipe will win a weeklong internship at one of my award-winning restaurants, or ten thousand dollars, but who would choose that?” He paused to wink a blue eye at the camera. “We received some amazing entries, from pot pies to pasta to salads.…”

  Aunt Trudy put down her pizza and began tapping her fingers on the coffee table. “Oh gosh,” she whispered. “Salads! Why didn’t I think of that! So fresh and healthy! I’m so nervous! Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh…”

  Frank’s gaze met mine, and I could tell that he, like me, was wondering if we were allowed to speak again.

  He decided to risk it. “Aunt Trudy, I can’t imagine that—”

  “SHHHHHH!” Our aunt held up her hand to silence him. Frank looked at me, shrugged, and dug into his pizza again. I’d been too nervous to take a bite up until that point, but now I was hungry, so I followed suit.

  Daaaaaaaaang. That pizza was amazing—and the lemon sauce was the perfect consistency, of course. Aunt Trudy was a master.

  Of course, I already knew that, because about six weeks before, when she was perfecting her crab lasagna recipe to send to Colton Sparks’s contest, Frank and I had volunteered to be her taste testers. What followed were several days of tasting more than fifteen different types of crab lasagna. Some had been light, some heavy. Some chewy, some slick. One experiment had blue cheese, a choice that Aunt Trudy, Frank, and I had all agreed was a big mistake. (“It’s the pressure, it’s getting to me,” Aunt Trudy had explained.) But the final recipe we all decided on—a delicate mixture of crab, ricotta and mozzarella cheese, butternut squash, yellow peppers, and the secret ingredient, a sprinkling of gruyère cheese—that was a masterpiece.

  There was no way Aunt Trudy was not at least placing in this contest.

  I tried to concentrate on my pizza while Colton blathered on about what a unique opportunity this internship was and how carefully he and his team had re-created and tasted each and every recipe. Then he spent some time talking about how much he loved his fans, how clever they were, and how they really understood how to “put some spark in” their recipes. That’s his catchphrase. He says it at least five times during each of his shows.

  Then, no kidding, he stopped talking and just stared at the camera for about twenty seconds.

  I looked around at my parents, Aunt Trudy, and Frank, wondering if I was missing something. Maybe the broadcast had frozen? Finally, at about second eighteen, I asked, “Is he seriously not going to—”

  “SHHHHHHHHHH!” Aunt Trudy hissed.

  And like magic, just as she finished, Colton started speaking again.

  “The winner of this year’s Home Cooking Masters Seafood Extravaganza is…”

  There was a drumroll, and at least ten more seconds before he spoke again, but I’d learned my lesson and wasn’t saying another word. Fool me once, etc., etc.

  “TRUDY HARDY OF BAYPORT!”

  As soon as the name was announced, I heard something shatter. Aunt Trudy had dropped her plate, and it had crashed on the hardwood floor, breaking into a million pieces, sending her pizza skidding toward the TV and leaving a streak of lemon sauce in its wake. Aunt Trudy was just staring at the TV, frozen—stunned.

  “Trudy!” shouted my dad. “You won! You did it!”

  Frank put down his plate, leaned over, and hugged her. “I knew you would!” he cried. “You always feed us so well!”

  Slowly Aunt Trudy’s shocked face shifted into a smile. “I did it,” she said quietly. “I actually did it!”

  I put down my plate and moved over to give her a hug too. “Of course you did. That recipe was perfect!”

  She shook her head, as if trying to wake up from a dream. “I’m going to meet Colton Sparks,” she said happily. “My idol! I can’t wait. I’m going to learn so much.”

  1 GONE WITH THE WIND

  Six months later

  FRANK

  JUSTIN LI DID NOT LOOK pleased.

  “So nobody took my money,” he said, frowning up at us from the driver’s seat of his Mazda 3 in the high school parking lot. The wind started up, icy and mean, making my brother Joe and me hug ourselves and look over longingly at our own car, parked a few rows away. It was that depressing part of spring, before it warms up, when it’s just thinking about not being winter anymore.

  “Well… no human did,” I corrected Justin with a little chuckle. “Is the wind a ‘body’? Does it have intention? I guess that’s a question for the philosoph—”

  “You’re saying the wind blew that huge wad of cash off the table at the café, and then into the river?” he said, clearly finding the situation not the least bit funny.

  “That is what the security footage from the car dealership seemed to reveal,” Joe said, lifting up his smartphone for Justin to see. “Would you like to watch it again?”

  It had been really hard for us to get that footage, actually, but Justin clearly didn’t care. He shook his head, taking on a thousand-yard stare. I glanced at Joe nervously, and his expression confirmed that he too had noticed what I feared: Justin was going to the dark place. Since Justin was six foot four and at least two hundred pounds, this was troubling.

  “All my barista money,” he muttered, his eyes narrowing as he stared past us. “Over four hundy. Do
you know how many lattes I had to make? How many ladies I had to argue with about whether I’d put enough vanilla syrup in? That was my guitar money. Do you know how many girls I was going to get with that thing?” When Joe and I didn’t respond quickly enough, Justin looked annoyed, like we weren’t following. “The guitar,” he said.

  “I can see you’re disappointed,” I replied, trying to take on the soothing tone my mom uses when she talks me down from a major blow. “But all things considered, isn’t it better that no human took your money? The wind is a bummer, sure, but it’s also a fluke. You don’t have to feel all mopey about the vicissitudes of human nature, or anything like that.”

  Justin looked up at me then. From his scowl and the sharp angle of his eyebrows, it was clear he was irritated. “Vississi-what?” he asked.

  “Never mind,” Joe said. “Look, Justin, we’re really sorry about your guitar money. Maybe next time, don’t carry so much cash around? And definitely don’t leave it in an envelope on an outdoor café table on a windy day.”

  Justin shook his head. “If it was a dude, I could punch him, at least. You can’t punch the wind.”

  This is factually untrue, but I decided not to call him on it. He didn’t seem to be in the right frame of mind. “I’m really sorry,” I said.

  Justin sighed, then pulled his long legs into his Mazda. “Well, at least I didn’t pay you anything.”

  “Yeah,” Joe said dryly. “At least that.”

  Justin had closed the door and started up the car by then, so if he picked up on Joe’s tone, he showed no sign of it. He rolled the window back down an inch. “Thanks, I guess,” he said with another sigh before backing out of his parking space and taking off.

  Joe and I both watched the spot where Justin’s car had been for a few seconds. I don’t think either of us really knew what to say.

  “That was an anticlimax,” Joe finally commented.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “Good thing he didn’t pay us.”

  Joe let out a hard snort. “I can’t blame him, though. There’s nothing satisfying about knowing your guitar money’s at the bottom of a muddy river and there’s nobody to blame but yourself.”

  I nodded and started walking to our car. Joe followed. “We’ve had a lot of cases like that lately, though,” I complained. “ ‘The wind took your money.’ ‘You slipped the note into the wrong locker.’ ‘Oh, she thought that was her guinea pig.’ ”

  Joe sighed. “So true,” he muttered. “We haven’t solved a real case since Lookout Key.”

  After I unlocked the car, we automatically fell into our usual spots, me driving, Joe riding shotgun. I turned the key, and the radio and the heat both sputtered on. The radio was playing the same inescapable Katy Perry song—I swear it had been playing when we’d turned the car off that morning.

  “It’s like everything’s on repeat around here. We need some excitement.” I pulled the car out of the spot and drove toward the parking lot exit.

  “At least spring break is coming up,” Joe pointed out.

  He was right. We had next week off.

  “Yeah, and we have such exciting plans.”

  Joe glanced at me. “Are you being sarcastic, Frank?”

  I nodded. In fact, we had zero plans. “Is it working?”

  “No,” Joe said bluntly. “Stop it. I’m the sarcastic one.”

  “Maybe it’s time to switch things up,” I suggested. “That’s what we can work on over spring break.”

  Joe groaned and looked up at the roof. “Please let something interesting happen before Frank turns into me and I turn into him.”

  * * *

  Back at the Hardy ranch, Aunt Trudy was cooking something in a big pot while she watched a rerun of What’s Your Flavor?, Colton Sparks’s spice-identifying game show.

  She whacked her spoon against the side of the pot. “It’s coriander,” she cried as some contestant got buzzed. “Who puts marjoram in chili?”

  “Fun fact!” I announced, thunking my backpack down on the kitchen table and startling Aunt Trudy. She looked over at me, less than thrilled, but I continued anyway. “Coriander is another name for cilantro, a common herb in Latin American cooking. Some people carry a gene that makes them unable to taste cilantro’s fresh, piquant flavor. To them, the herb tastes like soap.”

  Aunt Trudy sighed. “Of course I know that, Frank. I’m a home chef. Now look, you’ve made me miss the answer.”

  “It was coriander,” Joe said. “That Marta lady got it.”

  “Hmm,” Aunt Trudy murmured, unimpressed. “She struggled with allspice earlier. Anyway, boys, help yourselves to some zucchini bread. I made too much again.”

  “Ooh!” said Joe, running over to the counter and unwrapping a foil-covered block. “Wow, Aunt Trudy. There are four loaves here. And it’s not even zucchini season!”

  Trudy nodded absently, focused on her show. “I was noodling with the cinnamon, trying to get the amount right. The one on the left is the best, I think.”

  Joe looked at the loaf he’d unwrapped, confirming it was the right one, and then sliced off two generous helpings. He ripped a corner off one and popped it into his mouth.

  “Oh yeah.” He moaned. “This is the best zucchini bread I’ve ever had!”

  “You say that literally every time you eat zucchini bread,” I pointed out, grabbing a plate and putting my slice on it.

  “It’th alwayth true,” Joe replied around a huge bite.

  We settled down at the kitchen table as Aunt Trudy’s game show wrapped up. When the winner—Lisa, who’d gotten the coriander question wrong—was announced, Aunt Trudy frowned. Lisa had won a lifetime supply of spices, plus a trip to Puerto Vallarta, the perfect place to finally figure out cilantro, I guessed.

  “You should go on one of those shows,” I blurted, before I remembered how touchy that subject was.

  Aunt Trudy looked at me and crossed her arms. “I’ve already won the only prize I ever wanted from this network,” she said with a huff. “And it looks like they’re never going to deliver.”

  “Still no word from Sparks’s people?” Joe asked. He’d produced a glass of milk from somewhere and began guzzling it, washing down the zucchini bread he’d hoovered.

  Aunt Trudy shook her head. “Oh, plenty of words—but they’re always, ‘We’re sorry, Colton’s just too busy’; ‘He’s opening a restaurant in Santa Fe next week’; ‘He’s presenting at the Daytime Emmys’; ‘It’s his Maltipoo’s third birthday party.’ ”

  “He’s that hard to pin down, huh?” I asked.

  Our aunt nodded sadly. “I don’t mean to whine. I’m sure it’s all true, and good for him. I just really was looking forward to that internship.” She shrugged. “But it’s been six months already, and there’s no hope in sight. I’ve been thinking that I should just give up and take the cash prize. Ten thousand dollars is nothing to sneeze at.”

  “You could really deck out your kitchen with ten thousand dollars,” Joe pointed out. I realized he was halfway through another slice of zucchini bread.

  Aunt Trudy nodded again, looking thoughtful, and then forced a smile. “There is a new pasta-making attachment for the mixer I’ve been wanting.”

  “With ten thousand dollars, you could take a trip yourself,” I suggested. “You know, maybe catch up with Lisa in Puerto Vallarta and teach her about coriander?”

  Aunt Trudy gave me a wry smile. “Well, there’s the bright side. How are you boys, anyway? I’ve been dominating the conversation. How was your day?”

  Joe groaned, and I made a vague gesture like better leave that behind us.

  Aunt Trudy laughed. “That good, huh? Well, it’s a good thing spring break is coming up.”

  “Yeah,” Joe agreed. “Hey, wanna take us to Puerto Vallarta?”

  Aunt Trudy laughed at the same time that the phone began to ring. My parents’ landline had one of those old-school, actual-bell rings that made you jump out of your seat and pay attention. Aunt Trudy shot me an apologeti
c glance and made the one minute sign, then grabbed the receiver.

  “Hello? Hardy residence.”

  That was the last time we heard Aunt Trudy speak a complete word for at least five minutes. Her eyes went wide, her jaw dropped, and she began to say “Wha—” and got cut off. She laughed giddily. She shook her head in disbelief.

  Joe and I watched this silent telenovela, every so often glancing at each other like, This is good, right? or Should we do something? as we shoved more zucchini bread into our mouths.

  When Aunt Trudy finally spoke again, she was wearing a million-watt smile. “That’s… amazing,” she said. “It is rather short notice, but as it happens, I don’t have plans next week. If you can just go over how I get there one more time?”

  She grabbed a notebook and began jotting down information, nodding, every so often saying, “Yes… and where does that leave from?”

  I looked at Joe. “Wherever she’s going, it sounds a lot more remote than Puerto Vallarta.”

  Aunt Trudy was nodding again. “A ferry? I see. And no cars allowed. Got it. And is there cell ser— Okay. Yes. Sure. Like a get-away-from-it-all kind of place.”

  Joe raised an eyebrow.

  Aunt Trudy let out a happy sigh. “I’m so grateful for the opportunity. Can I just take the night to discuss it with my family and make plans before committing? Yes… Yes. Okay. Absolutely, I can get back to you by ten a.m. tomorrow.” She paused. “Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, goodbye.”

  She turned away from us to slip the phone back into its cradle. Then she just stood there, letting out the sort of happy sound a teakettle makes right before it boils.

  “Aunt Trudy?” I asked. “Is it good news?”

  “Such good news!” she cried, turning around with a huge grin. “Speak of the devil, boys. Honestly. I just can’t believe it. That was Colton Sparks’s personal assistant, Gemma.”

  Joe nodded. “And…?”

  She laughed, as though she still couldn’t quite believe the conversation she’d just had. “He wants me to get on a plane!” she cried. “Not now. Next week. Colton’s apparently hosting the Golden Claw Awards—they’re prestigious awards for chefs’ achievements in preparing seafood.”